Is a rice war going on, in this land of the staple? It appears so. There can't be anything more definite than the single-grade Madani white rice. Or so we were told. Or was it we, who got the wrong impression?
With communication and miscommunication crisscrossing, there will surely be something going against the grain. And it had.
On Feb 14, Bernama, the national news agency, reported that the government would introduce the single-grade Malaysia Madani white rice priced at RM30 for a 10kg packet on March 1.
It quoted no less than the chairman of the food cluster task force under the National Action Council for Cost of Living (Naccol), Datuk Syed Abu Hussin Hafiz Syed Abdul Faisal.
If there ever were a believability barometer, it would certainly give the seat of the chairman of Naccol a 10.
But Agriculture and Food Security Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Sabu issued a statement on Saturday, refuting Naccol's announcement, throwing the country, from farm to fork, into confusion.
What happened between Wednesday and Saturday remains a mystery. But the fact is, single-grade Madani white rice was never on the cabinet's table.
For now, Herculean energy will be expended on who can and who can't speak to the press rather than resolving whether it should be Madani white rice or SST local white rice or SSI imported white rice. It never pays to go against the grain.
If the affective state of the country, from the people who put rice on the table to the various players in the industry from farmers to millers to retailers, is to be calibrated, it must range from fear to relief and something in between, depending on which end of the spectrum one is.
To the head of the household, it is fear of affordability and accessibility. Should Madani white rice turn out to be RM30 per 10kg packet as announced by Naccol, then it is a hike of RM4 from the SST local white rice, priced at RM26 per 10kg packet.
To the farmers, who put in the most work and gain the least from price hikes, it is often a story more of thorns than harvests. Should the Madani white rice make it to market, even after March 1, the government must ensure that the farmers gain the most from the RM4 per 10kg hike.
As for the rest in the industry, Madani white rice is good news — relief in the measure of the affective state — because it means more money to be made.
One entrepreneur had described to a local news portal that the Madani white rice price tag was competitive. What would he say if the price goes down? He needn't worry. It never does.
But even if it miraculously goes down, rice will disappear, only to appear when the price goes north again.
Free-market economists, especially the liberal ones, will tell us that this is a perfect market at work, creating equilibrium between supply and demand.
Nonsense on stilts, we say. More like rogues at work in the imperfect market.
Is the single-grain Madani white rice a solution looking for a problem? If it is, then Putrajaya will do well by bringing clarity to the issue.